Travel medicine and general practice : a suitable case for audit ?

Travel medicine becomes more important with the continual expansion of international travel and the increased popularity of exotic holiday destinations.

In the United Kingdom general practitioners provide the bulk of travel health advice and immunisation and there is growing interest in providing these services.

While their armamentarium has been expanded with attractive but expensive new vaccines, the need for health service advice has never been more vital, with the risks of HIV infection and drug resistant malaria.

Advantages of a general practice based travel medicine service include maintaining continuity of care for the patient, but a disadvantage right be that the general practitioner sees too few patients to acquire enough skill in the subject.